The most significant scientific breakthroughs of 2016

in #science8 years ago (edited)

It is rumored that 2016 would have been, if not the worst year in history, clearly at the forefront of this point of view. However, look on the bright side: 2016 was a good year for cinema and science.


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The most significant scientific breakthroughs - The origin of multicellular life

Scientists have discovered that a ancient molecule GK-PID is why single-celled organisms have evolved in multicellular organisms ago 800 million years. The molecule is similar to a rifle capable of bringing together the chromosomes to "shoot", then to a side of a membrane of the cell at the time when the division starts. Thus, cells can be copied properly, avoiding becoming cancerous.


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The discovery indicates that ancient version of GK-PID did not initially behaved just as it does today. The only reason he was able to work so it was a mutation that allowed to NCR. This suggests that the origin of multicellular life is a single mutation.


A new prime number


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Mathematicians discovered in January, a new prime number: 2 ^ 74,207,281 - 1 requires the use in modern cryptography of Mersenne primes and other complex numbers to encode data. The New Number is the longest prime number discovered so far is five million digits larger than its predecessor. The form that you see above is the only practice of writing this number.


The most significant scientific breakthroughs 2016 - A new planet in the Solar System


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Scientists agreed that Pluto is too small to be considered a planet itself. Even before its discovery, there were rumors about the existence of a so-called Planet X. In January 2016, researchers at the California Institute of Technology had finally evidence of this planet.

Similar in size to our planet or a little higher, the new discovery currently does not has a name until will be seen directly.

“We restrictive pretty good in its orbit. What we do not know is his exact position in orbit, which is quite sad. “

Dr. Michael E. Brown, one of those responsible for discovery is convinced that the same planet exists and that we can ease to perceive as being the same solar system with us, even if it is at an approximate distance of 20-100 billion miles away and would take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete a transition move around the Sun in its orbit.


A new method of storing data


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In February 2016, British researchers presented a disk of quartz the size of a coin, which can store 360 terabytes of information for a period of up to 13.8 billion years. Storage environment created by specialists of the University of Southampton was named "memory crystals Superman".

The researchers used a femtosecond laser pulses of a few to write binary information in the 3D structure of quartz at a nanoscale. The disc reading is to turn all with such a laser. The storage system is also durable and can withstand temperatures of 157 degrees Celsius. Currently, this is the most efficient method of storing and could encompass all of human history.


A river of molten iron is hiding in the depths of our planet


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A river of molten iron was recently discovered in the outer core of the Earth, surprising and researchers.

The American Geophysical Union annual conference, held in San Francisco, was announced the discovery of a single river in the depths of the Earth. This "flow" at a speed of about 50 kilometers per year. Currently, the river is positioned between Alaska and Siberia and moving west.

Researchers claim that "this is a very dense liquid metal and it takes a tremendous amount of energy to put such an amount of matter in motion." From first observations, this river of molten metal has the highest rate ever observed in the planet's interior.

It has been observed by three satellites of the Swarm program, in an initiative of the European Space Agency to create a detailed map of the planetary magnetic field. Not that this trend has a considerable speed, but it looks like accelerating.

Currently, it has a width of 420 kilometers and surrounds about half of the circumference of the planet. Currently, this trend has become so powerful in terms of magnetic that affects how the planet's inner core is rotating.


The most significant scientific breakthroughs - The Earth's Second Moon

Earlier this year, NASA has detected a small asteroid orbiting our planet. This is not a satellite like the moon, scientists refer to it as quasi-satellite. The body that orbits around the Earth today, while our planet rotates around the sun, and will be present in the following centuries.

Called 2016 HO3 by researchers, it is actually an orbit around the sun. But while performing its annual movement, and encircling our planet satellite. Apparently, the distance between him and the world is much too big to be called natural satellite him, but it is an interesting example of quasi-satellite. You can read more about it here.

Accidental discovery utility of carbon dioxide

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee were able to convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol by mistake, as did many important scientific discoveries. The team working on a method to transform CO2 into ethanol, but scientists were convinced that this process will require several steps and catalysts, but apparently they were wrong, and the system is surprisingly simple discovered.

Scientists have created a number of spiked copper and carbon nano-sized mounted on a silicon surface and a drop of nitrogen is placed on each bristle. When the structure is exposed to carbon dioxide and a low electric charge, a chain reaction occurs and the combustion process is reversed, so that the gas is converted into liquid ethanol, shown engadget.com. If such a discovery-based technology is widely introduced, could provide a viable solution for utility batteries, such as those sold by Tesla.

Which do you think was the most important discovery?

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Great post. Totally undervalued. Upvoted, resteemed, retweeted and I will see if I can post it in Steemtrail.

Thank you! I really appreciate your effort!

why is 2016 considered a bad year?

Refugee crisis, events in Syria, Iraq, failed attempt coup in Turkey, terrorism in Europe, split a continent because Brexit, spread the virus Zika and racial tensions amplified in the United States and that Donald Trump became US president and the tensions related to this are just a few reasons for that 2016 was a terrible year for mankind.

oh that..

none of which are pertinent to the subject being discussed...i.e. scientific discoveries

but since you mentioned it.

I might note that the zika virus turned out to be nothing much. (compare the total number of cases of zika virus...WORLD WIDE....to date...to the number of abortions in a democratic enclaves in one month.

Black lives matter! think of the children

...and if you're not an American your opinion of our politics is irrelevant.
and besides...I wasn't for Trump...but I'm starting to like him.
he's done more good things for this country in a few weeks BEFORE he's even taken office than his predecessor did in almost a decade.
and even that is irrelevant compared to the warm fuzzies I get watching my enemies go insane due to him.

The enemy of my enemy....is the enemy of my enemy..but sometimes are interests co incide.

I've come to realize that almost everything I read in the press and everything that I see on the news is slanted to the point that you could call it deceitful. I spent a year in Thailand in 1971...and four years on Crete from 1976 to 1980....and I can assure you that what I thought it was like in both places bore no resembalance to what I saw when I got there.

I would assume that the same would apply to you.

yeah...my point is that I think 2016 was pretty awesome, in most ways for most people it sure beat the hell out of 'normal' life two hundred years ago. If it bleeds, it leads is the operational principle of the news media...so they only talk about blood. Ten million good things could happen and one Bad thing...guess what they're going to put on the news?

I have no doubt that if NO bad thing happened ....they'd either make something up or misrepresent something that was good.

For example...here's what they say about poverty.
Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. More than 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.

here's another way of looking at it.

if it bleeds it leads...if there is no blood...misrepresent something

Thank you for sharing your experience , I haven't had the real meeting with the world "outside" my country , but just from the internet I can see how many different viewpoints there are to the human people an how many people think differently.

What I had illustrate that point for me was the recent scene of a movie "Year Zero . ." there was footage of Iran ad I have to assure you what is painted by media can flip your worldview to a warped inverted look.

Much like the story was 10 years ago with the "weapon of mass distraction" and chemical before that with Afghanistan. It's hard for me to have a valid opinion of the middle east , but thing there have been sadly unstable for decades now , such a shame , anyways , I'm moving away from my point . !

Nice to know the impressions from you. In Europe we read something else about USA

Very nice post! I think the planet X is probably the most interesting discovery of this year :) I also think the detection of the gravitational waves was a very important breakthrough!

Let us hope we get some amazing new scientific discoveries in the coming year as well!

I will write a part 2 with gravitational waves - very interesting subject;
also about SpaceX and Blue Origin success

Yea, the gravitational waves are really interesting, even tho I am unable to completely understand the entire concept.

Looking forward to reading part 2 then!

pizzagate was a pretty important discovery

viral subject this one

I managed to sign into my icloud account at long last

Nice comeback!



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Interesting , there were also the nobel prize winners and the presidential medals of smth this year , there are good reaches there , here I'm very impressed I had no idea for any of the subjects.

I'm thinking that data storage and the ethanol translation will be the most technologically valuable , Planet X is interesting and a fun concept still not finished , rivers in the core are quite the thing , I can't understand how you can measure that from surface temperature or. Anyway Thank you L) !

" the combustion process is reversed" other uses for something like that???

I don't know how really this works but according to engadget.com

Were this technology ramped up for commercial or municipal use, it could provide a viable alternative for utility-scale batteries, like the one's Tesla sells. That is, in times of excess energy production from renewable resources, rather than store that electricity in a giant battery, we could instead convert it to ethanol and use that to power generators when renewable sources aren't producing. Plus it would be carbon neutral since the carbon dioxide generated from burning the ethanol would be reclaimed by the catalytic process.

I believe something similar is used to process plastic into fuel.

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